HSBC service centre in Kolkata

HSBC Electronic Data Processing India (HDPI) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of West Bengal to establish a group service centre in Kolkata.

The centre, expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2005 would be situated in a 3.5 acre campus at Salt Lake and would handle selected back office processing for HSBC's subsidiaries around the world.

HSBC has three other group service centres""Hyderabad, Bangalore and Vishakhapatnam""in India.

Niall S K Booker, group general manager and chief executive officer HSBC India, said there was a significant change in the way business was being done in Kolkata.

The most important factor which helped HSBC to decide on the coming to Kolkata was the attitude of the government in facilitation of negotiation process and development of infrastructure.

Booker said, good telecommunication infrastructure and presence of a large number of educated people added to it.

The infrastructure for the centre would be created by L&T Info City and an MoU to this effect was signed between HSBC and L&T Info City.

Malcolm Wagget, chief operating officer (COO) HDPI said, the strength of the centre by the end of 2005 would be 500 and would be ramped up thereafter.

The Kolkata centre was as big as HDPI's centres in Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore. At present, the employee strength of HDPI across its centres was to the tune of 6,000.

In addition to the India sites, HSBC has centres in Guangzhou and Shanghai, mainland China and in Malaysia and Sri Lanka. A site in Phillipines is currently under development. State IT minister, Manabendra Mukherjee said, many more companies would be coming to Kolkata, this year and surprises were in store.

Mukherjee had just returned from his roadshow in Bangalore. He met up with senior officials in companies like SAP, Intel, Logica CMG, LG Software Asia, Mphasis BFL. Mukherjee said, meeting was held with Infosys and its chief mentor N R Narayanamurthy on August 16 and 17. Infosys would be sending a team for evaluating infrastructure in Kolkata.

The state IT minister also met Jerry Rao and said that the next board meeting of Nasscom was likely to be held in Kolkata.